I would like the start this off by saying that typically my family and I have grace and we understand that nothing is perfect, nobody can control the weather, and sometimes people have a bad day.
With that being said, this was the worst possible outcome we could have had and we had an absolutely horrid time.
Starting out captain Charlie barely introduced himself and didnโt bother asking what fish we would have liked to target which put a bad taste in our mouth. We gave him the benefit of the doubt though as we had previously talked about fishing for grouper and snapper. We got on the boat (we had 6 people in the group) and we headed out. When we got out on the bay side the waves were semi calm, but once we got to the ocean side the waves were crazy and by the time we were out to our first spot everything we brought and all of us were soaking wet head to toe. My husband asked the captain about the rain protocol because we could see rain off in the distance and charlie replied with โI dont care about the rain, its the lightening thats the issueโ, my husband said he cared about the rain because we didnt want to stay wet the entire 4 hours! We didnt want to be soaking wet in the first place. We stopped and the captain was trying to anchor, told me I was in the way and to move but I had no where to move as there was not enough room on the boat for 6 people like the listing said there was. We finally got anchored and Charlie started chumming the water and got out a pole and asked if we had ever yellow tail fished (which my husband and I had) and we said yes and he proceeded to throw out the line twice and told us that if he couldnโt catch something at that spot we likely couldnโt either, which we agreed with completely.
Meanwhile, my husband was vomiting over the side of the boat and the waves were so insane we could absolutely not move about the boat (not that there was room) and the cushions from the seats and our bags of lunch were being thrown about the boat (as well as our bodies). We went to find our next stop and admittedly we asked to go back in because we were soaking wet and miserable and the ocean was 4-5 foot seas in a 20โ boat with 7 passengers total was more than we could handle.
When I asked captain Charlie if we could call the trip he said โYeah, I was hoping that the first spot would work because this isnโt weather you want to go searching for fish inโ..... if he knew that, then why did he take us out? Why did he keep us out?
So we went back in and got back right at the 2 hour mark, which was half of what was suppose to be our 4 hour trip.
We made the mistake of bringing cash to pay the remainder of the trip with, HUGE MISTAKE!! we paid our deposit online $150 and decided to bring cash to pay him the rest, which would have been fine if we were getting what we were originally promised but we caught no fish, never even touched a fishing pole, and were out for less than half the time we scheduled not to mention how disappointed and heart broken we were. So being the nice, kind hearted, and understanding people that we are we still asked him how much we owed him and he said โYou paid a deposit online so I believe you balance was $632โ and my dad handed him $540 (my husband and I had the remaining balance, but had decided that we were not going to pay him that because we expected him to not take it since he fell through on all the promises of the trip) and he handed my dad back $40 and we left. We were very very very upset and still are.
Immediately I called fishing booker customer service and talked to them. They were WONDERFUL! Easy to talk to and understand, never interrupted me while I was going through every issue we had and are still making our case a top priority. Not only that but they listened to our side and reached out the captain Charlie for his side too, which we admire and respect! As far as I have heard Captain Charlie has not responded to Fishing booker but still has time too as of me posting this review (the next day, itโs been ~36 hours). Fishing booker Immediately refunded our $150 deposit and we paid him $500 cash so total charlie received $650 of the $790 owed for the 4 hour fishing trip. WE LOVED FISHING BOOKER CUSTOMER SERVICE, they have been and will continue to be wonderful and attentive.
If you decide to go through with Keys aquatic adventures please be advised, he is a yellow tail fisherman and seems to prefer only fishing for them, as you can see on his Facebook page and based on what we saw (nothing is wrong with yellow tail snapper but we were expecting to fish for more, if we had gotten to fish), captain Charlie has no integrity (a decent captain never wouldโve allowed that many people on such a small boat, Never would have taken us out on those seas, and would have refused any more money than what he put in to that 2 hour trip! His 2 hour rates are only $390 as is!), and please please pay everything online just incase!
I would like the start this off by saying that typically my family and I have grace and we understand that nothing is perfect,...
